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Iman Mersal —poet, essayist, translator and literary scholar—is a professor of Arabic Literature at the University of Alberta. In 2009 she received her PhD from Cairo University for a thesis entitled “Images of America in Arabic Travel Literature”. Her scholarly work includes “Eliminating diasporic identities” in PMLA (2008) and “Al-Daw’ al-Azraq: Al-Waqa‘i’ Masyadat Al-Dhakira” [The Blue Light: Reality as Memory Trap] in Alif (2011). Mersal has written four books of poems in Arabic, selections from which have been translated into English, French, German, Spanish, Dutch, Hebrew, Italian, and other languages. English translations have appeared in Paris Review, American Poetry Review, and The Kenyon Review and in Khaled Mattawa’s translation, These Are Not Oranges, My Love (Sheep Meadow Press, 2008). Mersal has also published many essays, such as “Ayam Mansura” [Mansoura Days] in Amkenah (2010), “al-Sawt fi Ghayri Makanihi” [The Displaced Voice] in The Middle Ear (2011), and “Revolutionary Humour” in Globalization (2011).